Evaluation - Question 7

Looking back at your prelim task, what have you learnt in the progression from that to the final product?

Although me and my group were initially stuck for ideas when given the genre of "Musical", we very quickly came up with the notion of making it a parody of stereotypical, cheesy, boys-meets-girl musicals - specifically High School Musical.
We wanted to make it as comedic as possible, and rather than using jokes that we thought up, we thought of things that made us laugh personally, so both the comedic aspect of certain scenes and our acting would come across as genuine. This definitely worked, as the fact that we didn't take ourselves too seriously while acting and genuinely enjoyed it translated well onscreen.

We created an outline of our plot and wrote down in detail specific scenes we definitely wanted to include. Alongside this, we decided on the songs we wanted to use, and how they would fit the plot.
Filming the scenes proved slightly difficult, as we had initially wanted a scene in a bedroom - however, we decided to scrap that scene as it didn't hold any relevance to the plot and did not affect the final outcome. We decided to have the whole thing deliberately based at school, like in High School Musical, and filmed near the sports lockers, in the corridors, outside and in the library.

We used my Sony Cybershot DSLR camera to film, in order to get the highest quality possibly. We used both a tripod for some shots, but the majority was filmed hand-held. However, this did not generally affect the shots or look shaky, due to a setting on the camera which automatically stabilizes the footage whilst filming.

Editing our prelim tasks helped me greatly in terms of editing, as I had to incorporate short clips from songs, making sure to dub the audio in time to us lip-syncing. This was fairly easy as during filming, we'd played the music in time in order to mime at the correct speed. However, making the sound clips sound less abrupt upon starting was a little bit difficult, but I managed to do so by applying the fade effect at the start.

Overall, I am pleased with my prelim task, and it was a great way to become fully comfortable using Adobe Premier. Filming and editing this task was educational in terms of going through the process of creating something genuinely entertaining, and learning how to edit footage together in order to make it look at least semi-professional. It also enabled me to be more resourceful in terms of filming wherever we were able and using whatever tools available in order to create something you would want to watch.



Creating our film opening, Panophobia, was definitely a harder process, but one that was indefinitely helped along by the experience we all had from creating our prelims.

We firstly came up with the idea of doing a teen drama, as it was a genre we all enjoyed and had good ideas for. The first idea I came up with the sequence of the disposable camera photos burning away in reverse to reveal the credits written on the back, which ended up being the main title sequence, running throughout the montage showing the friendship of our three characters.

Although we definitely wanted our film opening to be a teen drama, we were aware that many teen dramas could head down a fairly cliched route of the stereotypical rebellious teen runaway or someone getting bullied via social media etc, so created these three characters who at first glance seemed to have a normal, healthy friendship. However, this was juxtaposed by the imagery of burning and flames, specifically burning photos of them together.

We created two storyboards on paper and one interactive storyboard detailing our shots and the amount of time they would be shown onscreen - this helped us clearly map out the scenes we wanted to film and where we wanted to film them.

I particularly liked the idea of filming in an arcade, due to the bright colours and the fact it would be a place where our characters could be shown interacting with each other and having fun. We initially planned to film in Southend, however due to scheduling issues this was not  possible. We ended up finding somewhere else to film the arcade scenes, which was the bowling alley nearby, and it worked out just as well, seeing as we ended up replacing some of the less well-shot clips with shots of our characters around school, laughing together.

I edited these clips together into a montage, adjusting the red shift and brightness in order to make the colouring appear slightly faded as though looking back on a memory, which was the intended effect. Throughout the montage, clips of burning disposable photos (we had previously taken these photos in various places, having to re-take some in order to make sure the image was well-lit and clear to see) were shown, sped-up and reversed to reveal the credits on the back.
I colour-corrected these clips, turning down the contrast and turning up the green shift, both to make sure the flames stood out, but also to contrast to the warmth and brightness of the montage scenes and create a cold atmosphere.

Overall, I am extremely pleased with the way our film opening turned out. Between creating my prelim task and this, I learnt that much more meticulous planning was needed, as well as the willingness to film wherever and whenever possible. I feel that my editing skills improved drastically whilst editing Panophobia, especially compared to the editing of my prelim. Using colour correction and adjusting the contrast/brightness levels on our raw footage gave it a much more professional look overall, and also allowed me to make tiny adjustments in order to give off either a happy or sad atmosphere.

If I had more time to improve it, I would take out some of the arcade clips, as the ending of our film opening feels slightly rushed and could be slowed down if less footage had been used. I would also remove some of the voiceover, specifically the "Snapchat us" line, as it feels insincere compared to the serious tone of the plot.